A man allegedly told a Service Service official at the White House that he was there to “assassinate” President Donald Trump. Roger Hedgpeth, 25, faces a charge of making threats to do bodily harm, police said according to The Associated Press.
Officers claim he walked up to a Secret Service official outside the White House, and said he was there to kill POTUS. He allegedly admitted having an knife for the act.
Investigators said he had a 3-and-a-half inch knife and an empty gun on him. He was arrested and taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer in the matter.
The incident happened right at the 15th St. NW and Pennsylvania Ave. NW, cops said according to The Washington Post.
“I am here to assassinate President Donald Trump,” Hedgpeth allegedly said. “I have a knife to do it with.”
This follows a periodic string of unrelated incidents in which people were arrested for alleged inappropriate behavior near or on White House property, though in many cases, not for threatening a president’s life.
Travis Reinking, the man charged in a mass shooting at a Tennessee Waffle House, was previously arrested for allegedly being in a restricted area near the White House. Another individual was apprehended in 2017: authorities said he jumped the fence on the premises, though Trump was never in danger. Fraught situations like this don’t just happening near the White House. Several states away, opera singer Hannah Roemhild was arrested after allegedly breaching security blockades near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Authorities said she was apparently intoxicated at the Breakers resort, according to the arrest report obtained by Law&Crime. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper tried to approach her, but she instead led officials on a high-speed chase, authorities said. Her attorney asked that she be transferred to a mental heath court.
[Image via Samuel Corum/Getty Images]
